Next year, 2026, the Christian world will celebrate the 17th centenary of the discovery of the Holy Cross by St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine the Righteous, in Jerusalem in the year 326 AD. It is as though God wished to reward His Church: after she had successfully resisted the heresy of Arius in the First Ecumenical Council in the city of Nicaea in 325 AD, under the support of Emperor Constantine. He revealed the Holy Cross from beneath the debris that had lain over it for nearly three centuries in the Holy Land.

In our church, we celebrate the Cross on Baramhat 10 (March 19) and on Tout 17, 18, and 19 (September 27–29) each year, in addition to the great day of the Cross on Good Friday, the Friday of Crucifixion.

The Holy Cross in our Christianity represents the strong foundation of our faith, as St. Paul the Apostle says: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14, NKJV). The Cross of Christ is the privilege of Christianity, the salvation of humanity, the sign of victory, the defeat of Satan, the Christian’s boasting, his adornment, his hope, and his entire life. Thus, we find the Cross present throughout all the books of Scripture, the writings and commentaries of the Fathers, their sayings and lives, and the life of the Church in her rite, doctrine, and heritage.

In this article, I do not wish to speak about the Cross as faith and doctrine, but rather about the presence of the Cross in form in human life. For example, the human body, created by the hand of God, is in the shape of a cross. Inside, we find the cross in the formation of the heart with its four chambers, and in the crossing of the optic nerve within the skull, and many other examples.

The sign of the Cross can also serve as a teaching and illustrative model for many matters in our lives, for the four arms of the Cross provide us with a sign of universality. The number “4” is the number of universality, as in the four seasons of the year, the four parts of the day (morning, noon, evening, and night), the four night watches according to Jewish tradition (Matthew 14:25), the four parts into which the soldiers divided the garments of our Lord Jesus (John 19:23), the four rivers that watered Paradise (Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel, Euphrates) (Genesis 2:10), and the four empires that successively ruled the earth in the period called “the times of the Gentiles” (Daniel 2:7).

I wish to present the shape of the Cross in four teaching models, each of which depicts important themes in our lives and in our Church:

The First Model: The word “News” in English has four letters, which suggests that it came from the initials of four words: North, East, West, and South—the four directions of the earth, forming the shape of a cross. Thus, the word “news” means the events of the entire inhabited world.

The Second Model: The life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ were written in four Gospels, complete both historically and theologically. When we present them in teaching, they are in the shape of a cross: the Gospel of St. Mark, the earliest, represents the lower arm; the right and left arms represent the Gospels of Matthew (addressing the Jewish mind) and Luke (addressing the human mind); and the upper arm represents the Gospel of John, which began with the ever-existent birth: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14, NKJV).

The Third Model: The four common elements shared by all the Churches of the world are:
1. Faith in Christ the Redeemer and Savior.
2. The Holy Scripture, with its books of the Old and New Testaments—what we call the Canon of Scripture.
3. The Nicene Creed, a Scriptural summary composed by the Church at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, in part to combat the heresy of Arius which threatened the Christian faith, . All Christian Churches east and west recite it.
4. The goal of life, which is eternity and the kingdom of heaven, the aim of all believers in their lives through Church worship in all its doctrines, rituals, heritage, and traditions.

The Fourth Model: The path of Christian unity, which the Lord Jesus Christ requested in His farewell prayer: “that they all may be one” (John 17:21, NKJV). This path is based on four steps, in the form of a cross:
● Step One (the lower arm): Establishing bonds of love—the love of Christ—among all churches through closeness, visits, meetings, and joint activities, on the foundation of Christ’s love that compels us.
● Step Two (the right arm): Specialized studies in the history, doctrines, and traditions of the churches. These studies require serious students, each of whom dedicates years to specializing in a particular church, mastering its language, culture, and contemporary life.
● Step Three (the left arm): Theological dialogues, both informal and official, which are conducted on the foundation of love (step one) and knowledge (step two), thereby making the dialogues fruitful and yielding real results.
● Step Four (the upper arm): Prayer—for the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts, minds, and souls that Christ redeemed with His blood on the wood of the Cross.

When these four steps are completed and integrated together, we shall arrive at the one heart of Christ.

King David once stood and with his words depicted the work of the Cross in Psalm 103: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:11–12, NKJV).

This is the psalm whose opening is: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 103:2, NKJV).

A blessed Feast of the Cross to you all.

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